Virtual Machines: Run different kinds of Operating Systems

Hi to everyone!
Well, have you ever tried using Virtual Machines? If you don't know what they are, here is it. In a nutshell, a Virtual Machine is like an imaginary machine running in your local machine. It enables you to run different Operating Systems in your computer as guest Operating systems.
I've tried two Virtual Machines. They are VirtualBox and QEmu. Since I like getting to know new things, I tried this stuff and was able to run different kinds of Linux Distributions, old Windows Versions and the like.
Why use a Virtual Machine?
1) Isn't it cool to run multiple operating systems in one computer? and each operating system are isolated from one another, so you don't need to worry that it might not be compatible with something else.
2) You can back up an operating system, move it, or even copy it somewhere just like an ordinary file.
3) If you got a powerful machine with you, you can use it more efficiently by using VM's because you can use the full capacity of your machine.
4) Each operating systems can run differently. This is one of the reasons we have these "Shared Hosting". It's like one server that can host numerous websites. It's done by using these virtual machines. Run different operating systems that can handle those sites.
But of course, there's always the bad side of it. It is more concerned about your hardware. You might experience Hardware Failure especially if you didn't configure it properly. Especially if you're not running a more powerful machine. Sometimes, your host machine's performance also suffers, like the RAM, your guest operating systems also takes up some memory. It's kind of called like base memory when you try one.
So, I hope I have shared some information on you guys! Have a nice day to all!

Hi there dollar3235! I'm glad that you like my discussion. Ya, Oracle's Virtual Box is one of those top open-source virtual machines out there and it's pretty good and easy to use. I actually got this information from my IT instructor who worked as a network engineer before.

great information my friend.. yeah I am using vmware and xencenter for visualization.. both are very nice software to work with. xen giving very commanding control while vmware is useful for individual PC..

Hello there lovedude! I'm glad that you thought that my discussion is informative. Ya, I heard VMWare is nice software especially from MAC users, who can switch to Windows just like navigating on different windows. Have a nice day!

Hello there DoctorDidi! Well, maybe. What's your machine's RAM and processor speed? VitrualBox needs 521MB and I think 1 GHZ.. To install those operating systems, you must have an installer of that OS, like .iso

i use them too sometimes (virtualbox and qemu)... but i'm wondering if we can create a completely new virtual processor based on our own design (not that i'm gonna make a new processor) but it would be cool if we can create a new processor on qemu or virtualbox.

Hi there surfer222! You got a nice idea in there! If you got a virtual processor, it might be nice to have a virtual RAM too, so that we don't need to assign some RAM to our guest OS. But just thinking about it, I don't have any idea on how they will be able to do that. Anyways, cool new ideas and have a nice day!